Formula Pilota China Master Final: Grand win for Jordan & Eurasia

December 3rd, 2011, Sepang, Malaysia

The Formula Pilota China Master Final was held at Sepang International Circuit. The Friday afternoon qualification race got rescheduled to Saturday morning (08:30) due to the heavy rain. The FPC Master Final race was held at 10:15 on Saturday morning.

Qualification race: Aaron Chang won, Jordan Oon was 2nd

According to the Friday qualify results, the Saturday qualification race saw two drivers from Eurasia Motorsport on the front row: Chang and Oon. Chinese young driver Sun Zheng and Malaysian girl Natasha Seatter stood 2nd row.

As the red lights went off, car No.3 Chang got off to a good start and led the race to Turn 1. At lap 3, Oon started to close the gap with his teammate Chang. Chang, on the other hand, did an outstanding job defending his position to the end. Last lap, car No.73 Seatter was following car No.87 Sun very closely and the two cars had a small contact when passing a left-hander. Sun spun and it cost him 2 positions. Car No.73 received a 30” penalty due to the contact. In the end, Chang won, Oon settled for 2nd. David Cheng captured 3rd at his first ever FPC race. Sun Zheng finished 4th.

Master Final: Jordan Oon was the champion

FPC Master Final was started at 10:15 on Saturday morning. The grid featured Chang and Oon on the front row; David Cheng and Sun Zheng on 2nd.

As the race started car No.3, Chang took lead, with his teammate Oon following closely on the back. After one lap, Sun moved up to 3rd, followed by David Cheng. Car No.39 Stefano Montesi, car No.33 Patrice Bonzom both moved up. At lap 2, Chang did a mistake and stepped on the grass. Oon took this opportunity to pass Chang and managed to maintain a good pace to the end eventually winning the race by over 14 seconds from Chang.

In the end, Oon won the champion for FPC Master Final and also set the best lap: 2:07.461. Chang was 2nd, David Cheng captured 3rd.

After considering a whole of factors including where to base himself, the cost of living, best value racing series, most affordable racing series etc etc Jordan has decided to commit to racing the Euro F3 Open series in the “Copa” class.

The European F3 Open Championship (formerly the Spanish Formula Three Championship) is a junior formula racing series based in Spain. It is one of six national and international Formula Three championships in Europe and Scandinavia that together form an important part of the established “career ladder” below Formula One. The championship’s first season was held in 2001. In 2006, it was branded as the Spanish F3 Championship by Toyota, in deference to its sole engine supplier.

The European F3 Open championship has become successful by actively taking measures to control budget requirements. This provides a more achievable option for drivers who lack the major sponsorship portfolio that is required by leading Euroseries teams, and would otherwise have to look elsewhere for their next step up the career ladder.

In recent years the Championship has become much less centred in Spain, with races across Europe, and has successfully attracted famous non-Spanish teams to take part. The first was the British outfit Team West-Tec who went on to win two Driver’s Championship titles in their first three seasons, and which were followed a year later by Italy’s RP Motorsport who have won races each year since joining.

Like British Formula Three, the series incorporates a second championship class for chassis specifications from the previous generation. The Copa was created in 2005, and provides an opportunity for drivers without competitive budgets, who would otherwise be left unable to progress from cheaper formulae.

The European F3 Open has its origins in the Spanish national series and runs alongside the International GT Open.

The team he will be racing with are 2011 Championship winning Team West-tec.

Team West-tec

Testing at Catalunya Spain in the Team West-tec Euro Open F3 spec car went pretty well. Cold mornings but remained dry and even was sunny on second test day. Managed to go below pole position time by 5th test session by 8/10ths. Team was fantastic and great to work with.

In Sepang F1 circuit having fun in a Formula Abarth. Different car to drive again – turbo charged so sounds like a lazy car – no high revving sound but turbo whistle is pretty cool. Now if only they would allow a blow off valve to be fitted that would be haven. Follow my tweets @jordanoon

GoPro cameras coming on as a product sponsorship for 2011 and am looking forward to being able to promote their great products in my upcoming racing program to get myself back into race mode.

First off will be 2 race weekends – 25th -27th Nov and 2nd – 3rd Dec -at Sepang Interantional F1 track, Malaysia in the Formula Pilota China racing series in a Formula Abarth with Eurasia Motorsport. Then onto to Catalunya, Spain to test with a Formula 3 team. Still in the process of firming up plans to race the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand in Jan-Feb 2012.

Made the long trip to Monza, Italy to race the final round of the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC series. Joined Koiranen Bros. team for the race weekend.
After being out of racing for 10 months, it was a nerve wrecking wait for the start of first free practice. Finished the session intact and with 19th fastest time which was to be expected. 2nd free practice session was a no go due to an electronic gremlin so less track time did not make it any easier. 3rd free practice saw best time jump to 12th fastest with others doing new tyre runs so looked promising for qualifying.
Unfortunately was not to be as tried too hard on new tyres and made too many little mistakes to finish 16th fastest and 13th fastest for race 1 & 2 starting grid position.
Race 1 was good to blow the cob webs out and finished 13th and race 2 got best finish for the day of 11th just 2 seconds away from a top 10 finish. Race 3 was an interesting dice with 4-5 guys to finish 15th. Overall would have finished 12th or 13th for the meet and managed to keep the car intact which was a relief.
Would have liked a much better result but did not have enough speed at the end of the day.

Jordan had a test in a Formula 3 at Phillip Island in Victoria and Mallala in South Australia with championship winning team BRM. It was an amazing car to drive and he came through the tests unscathed. His times were reasonable for his first time in the car and thankfully the Victorian weather gave him a dry Phillip Island track to explore the full potential of these fantastic Formula 3 cars. The aero downforce was formidable allowing a flat run around Phillip Island’s turn 1 at 240kmh. The downside of this is a sore neck after a full day at the Island.

Mallala was a different track all together which allowed the braking potential and torque characteristics of these cars to be explored. Weather again was fantastic however some mechanical issues cut short an otherwise good day of testing.

Its a pity the Australian F3 series is struggling for competitors as the cars are fantastic to drive.